Wednesday, November 7, 2007

USA Defeats Belarus

NELSON - Barry Almeida scored with five seconds remaining in overtime lifting Team USA to a 7-6 come-from-behind victory over Belarus in round robin action at the World Junior A Challenge Tuesday night at the NDCC Arena.

Almeida, selected the player of the game for Team USA, won a race for the puck with Belarus goalie Valeriy Pronin before depositing the biscuit into the vacant net.?

The win sets up a Pool B showdown Wednesday in Nelson between Team Canada East and Team USA. Both teams are 1-0. Team Belarus finishes third in the pool with two losses.?

The Canada East/USA game on Wednesday in Nelson is already a sellout. ?

Team USA trailed 4-1 in the second period and 5-3 in the third before staging its rally.?

USA, which tied the game at 5-5 early in the third frame, thought they had the game won when Jack Connelly’s tipped in a goal-mouth pass from Ben Blood past Pronin with just over five minutes remaining in the game.?

But Andrei Kolosov tied the game with three minutes remaining in the beating USA goalie Brady Hjelle from close range.?

Pavel Razvodovski scored three times to lead Team Belarus. Artem Demkov, who scored twice for Belarus, opened the scoring three minutes into the game.?Demkov was the player of the game for Belarus.?

Yuri Eliseenko finished the game with four assists for Belarus.?

The second period the teams combined for five goals, with Nico Sacchetti, Tim Hall and Blake Kessel scoring for Team USA. Kessel is the brother of Phil Kessel, who plays for the Boston Bruins of the NHL.?

Razvodovski scored to give Belarus a 5-3 lead two minutes into the third period before Nick Dineen and Blood scored 24 seconds apart to tie the game at 5-5.?

16 comments:

Anonymous
said...

What a debacle! This is the best the US can do against Belarus?I guess a lack of prep time is to blame for the stumbling start. One would have to question the Team USA selections, including the coaching staff.Hopefully the team can find some chemistry.

judging by last nights game, the number two Canadian leagues are not that far behind America's tier 1 league as the USHL barely managed to beat a collection of tier II players representing eastern Canada.

I think that you must take everything into consideration; the two Canadian teams have had quite a bit of more time and games together. The US team had virtually no time together and a exhausting journey just getting to the tournament.If the US team had the extra time together, I think the gap would be quite noticeable.

"I'd venture a guess that may be a reason why the US isn't "dominating""

Gee, the same could be said as to why Canada East or West aren't dominating. The fact remains that this tourney is at least suggesting that the top level talent in the USHL isn't any better than the top level talent in the Canadian Tier II ranks.

according to Hockey Canada's site, Belarus, Canada East, Canada West, Germany, and Russia all started playing exhibition games together on Nov. 1. I guess that would mean they have been together a little longer than the USA.

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